(In the locker room following OT loss to Mississippi St. on a shot at the buzzer in 2017 Final Four-snapping UCONN’s 111-game winning streak).
“Now you know how every other kid in America has felt. So s#ck it up and deal with it.”

“Most Freshmen are inherently lazy…’cause all Freshmen are looking for ways to do things without exerting themselves too much…Like, ‘I did this in high school by doing this much, so how can I get the same results as a Freshman by doing the same amount I did in high school? Then they realize sorry, it’s not workin’…then they get frustrated, then they lose it completely…So some have all of that, and they’re completely blown out of the water.”

“After you’ve been gone about three years, you’ll start to like him again.”-Rebecca Lobo (’92-’95, ’95 National Champions-UCONN’s first) to Breanna Stewart (Stewie) (’13-’16, four consecutive National Championships, four Final Four Most Outstanding Player awards).

"...(Coming to UCONN) was the best basketball decision of my life...(To Geno): When you recruited me, you knew I belonged at UCONN. You knew I was meant to play for you, and fortunately, I knew that, too. And I followed my heart. And you have completely changed my life, and for that I thank you. You have changed my life, and I am here tonight completely because of you. Thank you."-Rebecca Lobo-Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech-Sept. 8, 2017.

Watching Potential Recruits
“What kid, when I watch them play, plays their butt off every possession…They come down here, they get a rebound, they outlet it, and get a layup at the other end…Then they run back, block a shot…and they just play like that the whole game…are they unselfish?...are they a great teammate?...When they get subbed outta the game, do they go sit at the end of the bench, put a towel over their head?...or do they stay involved in the game?...So are they the kind of person I want at my house for dinner?…Are they the kinda kid who’s going to go to class all the time?”

“Kids need to understand that’s it’s here (practice) where you learn to be a good player. I don’t want to hear any more of this cr#p about how some guys are game players, not good practice players. I’ve never met anyone that was a great game player who didn’t have tremendous work ethic and practice habits.”

Transfers
“A transfer situation is never sudden…so many signs leading up to it…that’s the way it’s gonna end…it’s best for them, it’s best for you…Like other schools, we take a chance on people, most of the time we’re correct. But increasingly in this day and age, it’s a lot easier to miss…Caught in a situation where the kid doesn’t belong here…We made a mistake, or they made a mistake. They just don’t belong here, they don’t fit, and they’ll never fit…There’s the other kids…really do fit…they wanted to, we wanted them to…they tried their best, and they realize, ‘I can’t see myself getting the kind of playing time I want. I think it’s best for me.’…Those kids, I feel better about…’We did the best we could…We gave you an opportunity…You gave us everything you had, and it just wasn’t gonna work.’...I don’t like when we make mistakes…turns out we misjudged…I feel bad ‘cause it’s on us…We should know better, but we’re not perfect.”

“After you Freshman year, you have no excuses. Coming in as Freshmen, people can look at you and go, ‘I can’t believe you can’t do this.’ Well, of course, they can’t do it. . They’ve never been exposed to it…But now after a year, when you come back, I don’t want to hear any excuses. Now you know. So by the time you’re a Soph., and you have tremendous talent, and you don’t know how to use it yet, and you’re still struggling, and you’re still lookin’ around for help all the time, you’re not gonna make it…You’ll be good, but you’ll never be as good as you could be. That’s the year you gotta prove, ‘I got it..”

“My biggest fear as a coach, I think, is players leaving after their Sr. year, and goin’, ‘I don’t think Coach pushed me enough…I think I could have been better if I’d just had a little more pressure behind me.’…And I don’t ever want anybody…I’d rather have them leave goin’, ‘I hated all four years there…All that guy did was just push and push and push. I got sick of it.’. I’d rather hear that while they’re pickin’ up trophies in the WNBA, than hear, ‘I wished I woulda got pushed,’ while they’re playin’ some place in the 30-and-under league ‘cause they didn’t get the most out of their ability.”

“I can live with physical mistakes…I can’t live with, ‘My bad, I forgot.’ Argh!..Then it’s like I’m kinda sarcastic sometimes, ‘No, you didn’t forget. I forgot you shouldn’t be playing. My bad.”…The thing that drives coaches crazy is the same mistakes over and over and over again…I can’t be correcting the same thing every day…Tomorrow I want to correct something different than I did today…that’s coaching and teaching…I’d like to think that this is just another classroom a lot of times…You’re tryin’ to get an ‘A’ in basketball…How do you do that?...Gotta study…put in the time…gotta work at it…gotta concentrate, gotta focus…it’s the same thing…that’s why we try to recruit really good students. ‘Cause I think really good students are accustomed to that…And then, you keep your fingers crossed.”

“This is one thing that I tell our players all the time when I watch them play in high school. I say, ‘Listen, if I come to one of your games, it better take the average person 30 seconds to know which kid’s goin’ to Connecticut. If it takes me longer than that to watch out there, and I can’t tell which kid’s goin’ to Connecticut, and if I were to ask somebody, ‘Do you know which kid’s goin’ to Connecticut out there?’ And they go, ‘I dunno’, and at the end of the first qtr., they still don’t know and at the end of the second qtr., they still don’t know, that’s a bad sign….'cause if you’re comin’ to play for us, you need to dominate the high school game.' ”

Interviewer: “Do you ever use the program’s history as a teaching tool?”Geno: “All the time…To me that’s one of the best there is, um, in both scenarios…Like , you bring up instances where things didn’t work…You say, ‘Look, we need to study that, understand that, why…and let’s take steps to make sure that doesn’t happen again…The last shot against Miss. St….panicked…You can’t panic…don’t get rushed…when the game’s on the line, and things get crazy, you have to slow everything down’…And you have to bring up…This is what happens positively when you do this, because I remember this particular year, this is how we handled it, and this is what happened…So you use this history of your program for a lot of teaching things…You use the former players, and you remind your players, ‘Hey, you’re not the first person to go through this, you’re not the first person to go through a shooting slump…So, you know, it’s not the end of the world’…So you bring up team history, you bring up individuals and their history…and you try to give, um, as much visual stuff as you can.”

“‘This isn’t Jr. High where just because you’re on the team, you get to play. This is college basketball. When you’re getting a $50,000 scholarship, you have certain obligations…and you have an obligation to those people who came to the game last night…You have an obligation to compete…to really, really compete…You’re asked to do one thing: show up every day and compete hard’…When you reward people for doing nothing, you get nothing…Compete a lot, and they get rewarded…and they compete harder.”

Speaking Out on Social Issues
“…All of us as coaches are trying to put our players in a position to be able to just grow, and grow up…and be authentic…um, I think they’re authentic as players. When they play here, they play in a way that people will appreciate what they bring to the court, and I think they carry that along with them…that, ‘This is what I think. This is what I feel’…and, um, it takes a lot of courage to win a National Championship, and it takes the same kind of courage, even more so…to grow up and speak out…and I’m proud of the way they carry that courage everywhere they go.”

The ReverendInterviewer: “That stunning loss in the Final Four. What was the reaction around you?”Geno: “…I was goin’ for a walk one day, this guy was driving down the road in his truck. He leans over, says ‘Coach.’ I go, ‘What’s up?’ ‘Reverend So-and-so. I’ve got a $64,000 question. I go, ‘What is it.’ He goes, ‘What happened?’ And I thought he was givin’ me a hard time like my friends do. Some people I only hear from when we lose…He goes, ‘What the h#ll happened?’ So I go, ‘You know, we weren’t good enough, man. What else can I say?’ He goes, ‘Well, what was it? Too many Freshmen? Inexperience? You guys didn’t come to play? What was it?’ And I thought to myself, ‘Man, this guy is serious.’ I said, ‘Nah, you know…I dunno how many games we won...We lost in the Semi-Finals in OT. We were just not good enough. That’s all there is to it. What else you want me to say? I said, ‘That’s bad.’ He goes, ‘Oh no, no, no…I’m not saying anything bad about it. We’re just used to so much success around here from the women’s team, that it was kind of surprising.’ So then I’m thinking, ‘Lose in the Semi-Finals in OT is not a successful year?’ So the only thing that’s a successful year is winning the National Championship?’Interviewer: ”But you set that bar.”Geno: “ I know…he was a Reverend…He talks like that?...What’s this country comin’ to?”

“Me, we, my coaching staff, put a huge premium on body language. And if your body language is bad, you will never get in the game. Ever. I don’t care how good you are…When I look at my team, they know this. When I look at game film, I’m checking what’s going on on the bench…And if somebody’s asleep, if somebody doesn’t care, somebody’s not engaged, they will never get in the game. Never. And they know that. They know I’m not kiddin’.”

“Everybody talks about, ‘We gotta be tougher…You know, ‘We gotta play with more energy’…things that you used to think were just givens…If you’re gonna play, you need to play a certain way…you shouldn’t have to coach that…the worst thing you can say to a coach after you beat their #ss, the worst is…you go up, shake hands with him…’Your kids played really hard, man’. And that guy just wants to choke you there on national television…that’s the biggest insult ever to a coach…’Your kids played really hard, man’…’cause that should be a given…So you’re tellin’ me that’s the best thing about my team, we play hard?...So, yeah, if you really wanna kill a coach after a game sometime, just go, ‘You guys played real hard, man’…Just hurry up and keep walkin’, though.”

“…Championships don’t motivate me. What motivates me is the players. When I look at them, and I see the look in their eyes…‘Coach, if you help me, I think I can do this, this, and this.’ That’s when I go, ‘All right, I’ll help you.’.”
“I love watching the kids get better. I’ll tell you what’s worth everything: When one of your players says, ‘I could never have been this good without you.”

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Interviewer: “What’s the most gratifying thing that happens in practice?”Geno: “When somebody does something they didn’t think they could do…The look on their face…and you can see that they’re so happy…that they feel so good about themselves…and, then all of a sudden, in a game, that exact scenario pops up, and they need that exact thing…and they do the exact thing…and they look over at the bench…and it’s just the best part.”

“Every kid has to have, like, a breakthrough…the light bulb goes on…we’ve had some…walked in with the light bulb completely on…and it’s so bright, it’s unbelievable from day one…and then we’ve had those that over four years, it just keeps getting brighter and brighter. You can’t extinguish it...then we’ve had some that come in and the light bulb’s on, and you go, ‘Wow!’…and then the first sign of a storm, the power goes out.”

“For me, practice is mostly a test…a challenge…a dress rehearsal for the chance to see how people react under pressure…and what kinda pressure…I can’t simulate game action…don’t have a crowd…referees…so what pressure can you put on ‘em?..You have to come up with ways to make them feel they’re under pressure…and you wait and see how people respond…and some people just thrive on it. They’re one way without the pressure, and then when you put the pressure on them…they…light goes on, and they’re unbelievable…and then you got others that are great…You go, ‘Wow, that kid’s really good.’. And the then the minute you turn the pressure up, they can’t function…Once you get here, you have to prove you can handle game pressure, crowd pressure, and whatever else is goin’ on…At practice, I make the rules…and in practice, if I don’t like the ways things are goin’, I change the rules…and at practice, you’re not gonna beat me unless you are really, really, really good…and if you start beating me, I’ll change the rules so I have a better chance to win…and if you still beat me, then I leave practice that day goin’, ‘ D#mn, man, we’re really good.’ “

“Don’t tell me how good you want to be. Show me how good you want to be.”
“You are either a hard-working individual or you are not. You can’t pick and choose when you want to work hard.”
“Coaches don’t decide who plays and who doesn’t…Players decide…If a player wants to play, they do whatever they have to do to play…That’s it, no matter what…and the ones who don’t play a lot…that’s their decision.”